The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa - Hardcover

A collection of quirky midwestern tales introduces a set of grieving parents who want their dead son's teacher to write poetry and pretend he wrote it, a mother who drives into a blizzard to find her lost husband, and a dog psychic named "Junior." A first collection.

he curious world of Elizabeth Stuckey-French.  Her exuberant collection is peopled with characters who walk a thin line between reality and delusion, trying to break out of their molds and live a little. With stylish, wry writing, Stuckey-French creates intelligent, poignant, funny fiction.

Her characters--mostly Midwesterners trying to make sense of a changing world--are bizarre but strangely lovable.  They may lie to make their situations better, but the stories have a resounding emotional truth.

In "Junior," we meet a dog psychic who enlists her troubled niece in a moneymaking scheme.  In "Electric Wizard," grieving parents beg a teacher to invent poetry and pretend their dead son wrote it.  And in the title story, the mother of two young children drives east on a disordered impulse through a blizzard and picks up a gas station attendant along the way.  Several of these stories have appeared in The